"Not impossible, but definitely not a trivial implementation."

Component:
--> Gather Player map feedback (unit position issues & clarity):
Checked!

Comments:
--> Name labels:
I don't see a problem with the abreviations in any of the maps. We already deal with much worse situations.
--> Colors:
Now we come closer to the true colors. Austria in Yellow and and Ottoman Empire in Red - this is correct to their flags at the time! If that was the intent or not, kudos for Alex Ronke.
I wonder if russian color could not come any closer to white (for blue and red are already taken)..., at least to grey, for a whitey reference... why is this a greeninsh grey??
--> Overall:
Beautiful 1900 art - map and supporting icons!

"I'm almost wondering if I should just drop the name labels entirely at that resolution."

Seems like that would be bad from a usability perspective. I always just use the small map, and for a variant of this size that should still be possible. I'm not aware of any variant here that drops the labels.

nopunin10did: This is great! Are you working on what was previously coded for 1900 or starting from scratch?

Love it! I'm guessing the lens flare effect that the map has at PlayDip (like the screenshots) isn't possible at vDip... but if it is bring it on!

"I wonder if russian color could not come any closer to white (for blue and red are already taken)..., at least to grey, for a whitey reference... why is this a greeninsh grey??"

White doesn't work well with this particular color scheme, especially since I'm using a white gradient semi-transparent overlay to emphasize the shape of each region.

The green shade in use is Russian Green, which was the color of the Russian military uniform in that era.

"Now we come closer to the true colors. Austria in Yellow and and Ottoman Empire in Red - this is correct to their flags at the time! If that was the intent or not, kudos for Alex Ronke."

Thanks! Yes, that was my intent. Calhammer got it backwards; though, to be fair, Austria-Hungary's flag was red at the time. It was the Habsburg flag that was yellow-and-black (as will be seen with the units).

"nopunin10did: This is great! Are you working on what was previously coded for 1900 or starting from scratch?"

From scratch. The art is based on previously generated assets that I worked with Baron to create. I'm currently using them to GM a 1900 game via email.

Typically, I export to a much higher resolution, and my abbreviations aren't done the same way:
http://imgur.com/O8Wbpcx

I added a white outline to the abbreviations for the vDip version since I won't have the power to tweak their locations mid-game (as I do whilst GM-ing).

"Love it! I'm guessing the lens flare effect that the map has at PlayDip (like the screenshots) isn't possible at vDip... but if it is bring it on!"

You mean the gradients? I'm not 100% sure, but I think I can implement those here. The name-layer just needs to be treated as a PNG with a per-pixel alpha-channel, rather than doing white-as-transparent replacements.

PlayDip's maps have a semi-transparent layer that contains hints from an actual world map (along with a few random photos). Not quite lens flare either, but I'm guessing that's what you mean.

My hope is to considerably improve upon their map. What they have is consistent with their other variants and styles, but the goal here is to stay faithful to what Baron & I have concocted artwise.

The austrian flag in the 1900 olympics was black and yellow, if i am to trust Wikipedia :)

The other thing to remember is that the power isn't Austria. It's Austria-Hungary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary

However, the Habsburg black-and-yellow is definitely the better pick for representing the power. There are just too many red flags in the world.

Thanks for the updates, really appreciate knowing how it's all coming along.

Any news about the variant?

Not much to report at this time. A combination of work duties and GM duties have been eating up my spare time.

In good news, I have been chatting with Dipsy over at PlayDiplomacy to get some guidance on how they implemented the "Suez Canal Rules." It's the most difficult change that 1900 introduces.

Also had a chance to speak with Markus from webDip regarding some tips for easier manual testing of the php Diplomacy platforum.

Nice!

There are very good news! vDiplomacy is my favorite place to play Diplomacy (I tried seven) and 1900 is one of my favorite variants, certainly the best among those who look to mirror Classic itself. A real shame it's not present here *yet*, I would play half a dozen games of it and not tire! Thanks for the hard work so far @nopunin10did.

Spent several hours working on this tonight, and I finally got the PHP code to generate maps very similar to what I've been creating by hand.

There are still several visual artifacts, but the important thing is that the code actually handled the partial transparency and color replacement correctly (mostly).

Low res: https://imgur.com/90o3Wbh
High res: https://imgur.com/ceB5hWZ

Question:
In the low res version, I have the region abbreviations outlined in white. This is a necessity; otherwise they get very blurry. However, does this look right for the High Res version too? I can't really decide.

Looks great to me in both versions.
Very interested in your PHP-code...

Great work and very nice looking map. Wish we could see Baron's Ambition and Empire variant in here too, but Oli has already explained the challenges of the DP point system in vDip.

An earlier version of A&E was implemented for DPJudge, but it never got any real play.
It might be possible here, but it would be an enormous set of changes to implement it.

understood - that one may need to stay in the PBEM world unfortunately.

An earlier version of A&E was implemented for DPJudge, but it never got any real play.
It might be possible here, but it would be an enormous set of changes to implement it.

Not sure how that double-posted 2.5 hours later. Anyway...

lol, still understood.

How would the variant be called? "1900" or "Classic - 1900"? A dumb question I know, I am just curious.

The name of the variant is "1900." In some parts of the code, I've labeled it "Baron1900" because class names can't just be a number. However, when it's up and running, it should just show up as 1900.

It's great to see this progress!

For anyone unfamiliar with the variant, take a look at the rules here:
http://www.variantbank.org/results/rules/1/1900.htm

@JECE

Thanks!

An Update:

The progress has been stalled, unfortunately. My wife and I are buying a house and preparing for the move, so there hasn't been so much time to work on 1900. While my usual Diplomacy activities can be handled in snippets of time at my computer desk at work, that's not the case for code-related work on this variant.

I'm currently tripped up by the convoy problem: that convoyed moves to Egypt/Hejaz via the round-the-cape method need to be treated as half-strength, but moves from Egypt/Hejaz are still full-strength. Detecting _when_ this is the case is non-trivial.

I asked PlayDiplomacy's programmer (super dipsy) about it, and apparently they just have a variant-specific hack to handle it. I'd like to avoid doing that, but it may come down to it.

The other existing implementation (on DPJudge) trivializes this issue (and many convoy issues) by requiring players to explicitly declare convoy paths. That's not an option on vDip.

That's troublesome! I always disliked the Suez Canal Rules, in my opinion 1900's only flaw. Vae Victis' Edwardian Diplomacy variant solves it by replacing them with the "British Sea Lanes" rule (basically allowing British fleets to move Lvp-Gib and Gib-Egy); a much more elegant solution.

I think I would have done something even simpler. Instead of connecting Mid to Egypt & Hejaz, I would have made a new (normal) water space similar to the OTB spaces in Youngstown.

African Coastal Currents (ACC), adjacent to
-Mid Atlantic
-Gibraltar
-Morocco
-Egypt
-Hejaz

There would be a four-way intersection between Gibraltar, Morocco, Mid Atlantic, and ACC.

I have no idea what this would have done for balance, but it would have made the map considerably easier to program.